Feature: Archetype Breakdown for Pro Tour Return to Ravnica

Paul JordanSunday, October 21, 2012

Sometimes a deck is the most popular because it's oppressive and the clear best deck available. Sometimes a format is small and there aren't a lot of options. Yet still, other times a deck's popularity is a result of a format being new and untested and the "obvious" deck is chosen by the majority. I'm not convinced that the Pro Tour Return to Ravnica metagame was a result of any of those reasons. The format actually seems healthy with plenty of innovation happening. However, the cascading bogeyman of Jund still cast a large shadow over the format.

Ray Walkinshaw, AKA blisterguy, had the honor of sifting through 383 decklists and classifying each deck so we could start to see what the metagame looked like, which you can see here. I've re-posted the table for ease of viewing, and focused only on the Day 1 metagame so we can see what people chose, not how those decks performed. We'll be getting to that part shortly.

Deck

Players

Percent

Jund

119

31.07%

Robots

36

9.40%

UW Control

32

8.36%

UWR Delver

18

4.70%

Naya Kiki-Jiki Combo

18

4.70%

GU Scapeshift

17

4.44%

Storm

17

4.44%

Scapeshift

12

3.13%

GR Tron

9

2.35%

Second Breakfast

8

2.09%

GUB Infect

6

1.57%

Eternal Command

5

1.31%

Dredgevine

5

1.31%

Splinter Twin Combo

5

1.31%

WB Tokens

4

1.04%

Soul Sisters

4

1.04%

Merfolk

4

1.04%

Zoo

3

0.78%

Gifts Control

3

0.78%

GU Infect

3

0.78%

RB Burn

3

0.78%

Bant

3

0.78%

Jund Dredgevine

3

0.78%

BG Zombie Dredgevine

2

0.52%

UR Control

2

0.52%

BRW Zombies

2

0.52%

GWB Junk

2

0.52%

Nivmagus Combo

2

0.52%

Hive Mind

2

0.52%

Grixis Reanimator

2

0.52%

Living End

2

0.52%

UGR Delver

2

0.52%

Naya Aggro

2

0.52%

Nivgamus Combo

2

0.52%

GWB Doran

2

0.52%

UR Delver

1

0.26%

UGR

1

0.26%

Wargate Scapeshift

1

0.26%

4 Color Jund Doran

1

0.26%

Unknown

1

0.26%

4 color Delver

1

0.26%

BUG Control

1

0.26%

GWB Melira

1

0.26%

Doran

1

0.26%

GUR Through the Breach

1

0.26%

Mono Red Burn

1

0.26%

GB Infect

1

0.26%

Mono Red Highlander

1

0.26%

Doran Zoo

1

0.26%

UR Fairies

1

0.26%

Boros Aggro

1

0.26%

BW Zombies

1

0.26%

Mono Black Control

1

0.26%

GUR Aggro Control

1

0.26%

Mono Blue Faeries

1

0.26%

UB Control

1

0.26%

BG Zombie

1

0.26%

If you're unfamiliar with any of the deck names, please take a minute to read through Nate Price's excellent glossary.

There Jund is, representing about the same number of players as the next five most popular decks combined. This is, I believe, the result of two things. First, Jund is an obvious choice any time it is legal. It was dominant when it was in Standard and many people are very familiar with how to play it while still owning the cards. Second, outside of Jund, the format is vibrant. No other deck even managed 10% of the field. So there are a lot of decks with 10 or so people playing them in a 383 person field.

The unfortunate side effect of such a varied landscape is that there are fewer matches played by each deck, allowing for much less significant analysis. But, in the words of Osyp Lebedowicz, never let the truth get in the way of a good story. So we'll carry on and examine what data we do have and maybe take an educated guess or two to fill in the blanks.

Deck

Percent

Matches

Mono Red Burn

70.00%

10

Doran

70.00%

10

Naya Aggro

66.67%

15

Wargate Scapeshift

60.00%

5

BG Zombie

60.00%

5

Soul Sisters

60.00%

35

BW Zombies

60.00%

5

UGR Delver

60.00%

20

UR Control

60.00%

15

UR Delver

60.00%

10

Second Breakfast

58.00%

50

GUB Infect

57.69%

52

Robots

57.64%

288

GWB Junk

57.14%

14

Merfolk

55.88%

34

UB Control

55.56%

9

GR Tron

55.56%

72

Nivmagus Combo

55.00%

20

BG Zombie Dredgevine

53.33%

15

Hive Mind

53.33%

15

Gifts Control

53.33%

30

Scapeshift

52.69%

93

UW Control

52.44%

225

GB Infect

50.00%

10

Mono Red Highlander

50.00%

10

Unknown

50.00%

6

Eternal Command

50.00%

40

Storm

49.63%

135

Dredgevine

48.84%

43

Naya Kiki-Jiki Combo

48.59%

142

Splinter Twin Combo

48.57%

35

Jund

47.57%

597

UWR Delver

46.83%

126

GU Scapeshift

46.56%

131

WB Tokens

46.43%

28

Zoo

45.00%

20

UGR

44.44%

9

GU Infect

44.00%

25

RB Burn

43.48%

23

BRW Zombies

42.86%

14

GWB Melira

40.00%

5

Doran Zoo

40.00%

5

Living End

40.00%

10

UR Fairies

37.50%

8

GWB Doran

35.71%

14

Bant

35.00%

20

Grixis Reanimator

33.33%

15

Nivgamus Combo

30.77%

13

Jund Dredgevine

30.00%

20

Mono Blue Faeries

25.00%

4

BUG Control

20.00%

5

Mono Black Control

20.00%

5

GUR Aggro Control

20.00%

5

4 color Delver

20.00%

5

GUR Through the Breach

14.29%

7

Boros Aggro

0.00%

5

4 Color Jund Doran

0.00%

5

As is usually the case when a single deck has so much of the field, overall it was not an overwhelming favorite. In this case, however, it wasn't even a favorite. Bear in mind that I've excluded mirror matches (what with them being a guaranteed 50% and all).

Starting at the top of the list, what you see is really a lot of decks with only a handful of players using them. 60% is generally considered a very good win rate for a deck in a tournament. But for a single player in that same tournament it means losing 2 out of every five matches, which is not a recipe for making the top 8 (the lowest threshold of points for top 8 is usually around 36, which is a 12-4 record. Sometimes it's 12-3-1. Either way, that's at least a 75% win rate).

I normally try to sift through these results and identify a "best deck" for a tournament. It's subjective, at best, but I look at overall win rate as well as some larger number of matches played. With such a varied field, there's really not a lot to look at. Judging by this, I'd say Robots (or Affinity) was the clear best deck. No other deck within five percentage points of win rate had anywhere near the number of matches played. That's what I would say in a vacuum, with only the above table as information.

Thankfully, I have more information. Like many of you, I was watching coverage throughout the weekend, either on my computer or, yes, I stole a few moments of #PTRTR while out with my family with the aide of my smart phone. And the clear story of the event was the Second Breakfast deck. 50 matches is certainly enough to warrant discussion, showing that it had more than just one dominant performance from Stanislav Cifka. Let's dig deeper.

Second Breakfast

Win Percent

Matches

UWR Delver

100.00%

2

UB Control

100.00%

1

Zoo

100.00%

1

Boros Aggro

100.00%

1

UR Delver

100.00%

1

Doran

100.00%

1

WB Tokens

100.00%

1

GU Scapeshift

100.00%

3

Splinter Twin Combo

100.00%

1

Living End

100.00%

1

GR Tron

75.00%

4

Robots

75.00%

4

Jund

61.54%

13

UW Control

50.00%

2

Storm

33.33%

3

Merfolk

0.00%

1

RB Burn

0.00%

1

Grixis Reanimator

0.00%

1

BW Zombies

0.00%

1

UR Fairies

0.00%

1

BRW Zombies

0.00%

1

Nivmagus Combo

0.00%

1

BG Zombie

0.00%

1

GU Infect

0.00%

1

UGR Delver

0.00%

1

GB Infect

0.00%

1

Grand Total

58.00%

50

Okay, that hardly gave us anything to go on. Outside of Jund, there weren't any pairings of even five matches. And 13 isn't really enough to go on. So instead of looking into how each match went, unfortunately we can only say one thing: Second Breakfast performed well against a varied field.

Robots

Win Percent

Matches

GWB Doran

100.00%

2

UB Control

100.00%

1

RB Burn

100.00%

1

BW Zombies

100.00%

1

GUR Aggro Control

100.00%

1

Doran

100.00%

1

4 Color Jund Doran

100.00%

1

Doran Zoo

100.00%

1

Eternal Command

100.00%

1

GB Infect

100.00%

1

Dredgevine

80.00%

10

GU Infect

80.00%

5

BG Zombie Dredgevine

75.00%

4

Jund Dredgevine

75.00%

4

Scapeshift

70.00%

10

Jund

67.42%

89

Merfolk

66.67%

3

Grixis Reanimator

66.67%

3

Storm

63.64%

11

WB Tokens

60.00%

5

UWR Delver

58.82%

17

UW Control

56.25%

32

Soul Sisters

50.00%

2

GU Scapeshift

50.00%

20

GUB Infect

50.00%

6

Nivmagus Combo

50.00%

2

Splinter Twin Combo

42.86%

7

Naya Kiki-Jiki Combo

33.33%

18

Second Breakfast

25.00%

4

Mono Red Burn

25.00%

4

GR Tron

22.22%

9

Mono Red Highlander

0.00%

3

UR Delver

0.00%

1

UGR Delver

0.00%

1

Naya Aggro

0.00%

1

BRW Zombies

0.00%

1

GWB Junk

0.00%

1

Living End

0.00%

1

Gifts Control

0.00%

2

Hive Mind

0.00%

1

Grand Total

57.64%

288

I have to be honest here, I'm a little surprised by this. There is only one bad matchup, and even that one could easily be a fluke of 18 matches. However, there are positive results against the two most popular decks, including a staggering record against the bogeyman of Jund.

Jund

Win Percent

Matches

Mono Blue Faeries

100.00%

2

4 Color Jund Doran

100.00%

1

GWB Melira

100.00%

2

BRW Zombies

100.00%

4

Mono Black Control

100.00%

1

BW Zombies

100.00%

1

Grixis Reanimator

100.00%

4

Hive Mind

80.00%

5

Bant

77.78%

9

Jund Dredgevine

75.00%

8

Mono Red Highlander

75.00%

4

Splinter Twin Combo

70.00%

10

UWR Delver

68.75%

32

RB Burn

66.67%

6

Unknown

66.67%

3

GUR Through the Breach

66.67%

3

UR Delver

66.67%

3

UR Fairies

66.67%

3

GUR Aggro Control

66.67%

3

Nivmagus Combo

66.67%

9

Nivgamus Combo

66.67%

6

GU Infect

66.67%

6

GWB Doran

60.00%

5

Eternal Command

60.00%

15

WB Tokens

55.56%

9

GU Scapeshift

54.84%

31

GUB Infect

53.85%

13

Mono Red Burn

50.00%

2

GWB Junk

50.00%

6

Doran Zoo

50.00%

2

UGR

50.00%

4

Merfolk

50.00%

8

UW Control

46.88%

64

Naya Kiki-Jiki Combo

42.22%

45

Storm

42.11%

38

GR Tron

40.00%

25

Gifts Control

40.00%

10

BG Zombie Dredgevine

40.00%

5

UGR Delver

40.00%

5

Second Breakfast

38.46%

13

Living End

33.33%

3

Zoo

33.33%

6

UR Control

33.33%

6

Robots

32.58%

89

Scapeshift

32.14%

28

Soul Sisters

31.25%

16

Dredgevine

28.57%

7

GB Infect

20.00%

5

Naya Aggro

16.67%

6

Wargate Scapeshift

0.00%

3

UB Control

0.00%

1

Doran

0.00%

1

BG Zombie

0.00%

1

Grand Total

47.57%

597

Jund mangled UWR Delver and GU Scapeshift decks but otherwise had a wholly unsatisfactory showing. This is even worse than I expected. Typically, a popular deck such as Jund would have a mix of strong and weak pairings balancing each other. Here, however, it's almost mono-bad. Six different decks had 20+ matches against Jund and came out one top better than half of the time.

UW Control

Win Percent

Matches

Nivgamus Combo

100.00%

2

BUG Control

100.00%

2

Zoo

100.00%

1

4 Color Jund Doran

100.00%

1

GUR Through the Breach

100.00%

1

BG Zombie

100.00%

1

UGR Delver

100.00%

1

Boros Aggro

100.00%

1

BRW Zombies

100.00%

1

GWB Junk

100.00%

1

GUB Infect

80.00%

5

GU Scapeshift

76.92%

13

UWR Delver

72.73%

11

Mono Red Highlander

66.67%

3

RB Burn

60.00%

5

Naya Kiki-Jiki Combo

54.55%

11

Storm

53.33%

15

Jund

53.13%

64

Grixis Reanimator

50.00%

2

Second Breakfast

50.00%

2

Splinter Twin Combo

50.00%

2

Naya Aggro

50.00%

2

UR Control

50.00%

2

Eternal Command

50.00%

2

Dredgevine

50.00%

6

Scapeshift

44.44%

9

Robots

43.75%

32

GR Tron

28.57%

7

Merfolk

25.00%

4

GU Infect

25.00%

4

Nivmagus Combo

0.00%

3

Soul Sisters

0.00%

3

UR Delver

0.00%

1

GWB Doran

0.00%

1

WB Tokens

0.00%

1

Bant

0.00%

1

4 color Delver

0.00%

1

Doran

0.00%

1

Grand Total

52.44%

225

UW control, despite being the second most common deck in the field, only played against two decks more than 20 times, both of which we've already covered.

This was an odd Pro Tour in the respect that there were so many different decks out there that there wasn't a clear, slam-dunk answer. Jund, with 31% of the field on Day 1, managed to gain share when looking at Day 3 up to 37.5%.